Helping Develop The Future of Gamers and Games – One Input at a Time

Daily Archives: April 7, 2012

Well hey there fellow gamers! Real quick blog today featuring a game that’s both educational and fun at the same time. I know – they’re rare, but they’re out there. Anywho today’s game comes to you from a company called Wellcome Collection. They are, apparently, an online museum relating to the human culture and inner workings – which is why their game Axon intrigued me enough to write about it.

The science of neurons has never looked so fun!

Axon is a very quick point and click action game where you try and connect as many synapses as you can to earn points. There are multiple colors that you can connect throughout that serve as power-ups, and the game – although simple, is surprisingly addictive fun. Here’s how the power ups work:

Purple: Range – This will increase the range of your click radius for a short time.

Green: Boost – This boosts your protein count by boosting you up the targets.

Yellow: Chain Force – The best power-up, but also the hardest, click all the yellow proteins in order and you get the largest boost of any upgrade available.

The game is exceptional, because it does allow for point and click accessibility, and it’s art style is conducive to just about anyone to play it. Another key element, that I found really sealed the gameplay for me, was the competitive nature of the game. The AI of the other red neurons as they tried to steal away your available proteins was a really nice touch that kept me engaged. The music is ambient and intriguing and the gameplay is fast paced enough that you don’t get bored of the concept easily. The only problems here is that it’s not exactly conducive gameplay for those with motor-skill impairments.

Precision timing is key here since the radius ring closes rather fast – so your clicking finger needs to be super quick as you increase up in length. Overall though the game is fantastic, and even though it’s simple, it kept me wanting to try and increase my score over and over. I kept wanting to see if I could create new neurons as I went on, because when you lose the game gives you a synopsis of what type of neuron you created. I thought it was fascinating and I hope you will too. I know today’s article is short and sweet, but truth be told, it’s all about the game – not about what I have to say about it.